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Friday, June 29, 2012

Life sure moves fast. And this blogger forgot to post photos of the easy pie crust, and guess what? The pie is gone, gone, gone. And it was good, good, good!
Since I continually comment on the speed of life passing me by I think I will share with you a recipe using leftover beef and beef gravy. I like to make an eye round roast beef usually around 5 lbs., which is much too large for one sitting around here, even with 5 of us, 4 being grown men. But using the leftover beef gives you many possibilities.
One of my favorite possibilities with leftover eye round is pepper steak. You use the leftover beef--sliced thin and then cut into strips about 1/2 inch wide, and you use the leftover gravy, if you have any. If you don't have leftover gravy its no problem, I'll add how to make new gravy from items you most likely have in your pantry.

Okay, so you slice the meat thin, then cut it into 1/2 inch wide strips, and set it aside. Cut up 2 Vidalia onions into 1/2 rings and saute them in 1-2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet. About 3 minutes into the saute (before the onions get real brown) toss in a tablespoon of minced garlic, the beef, and 3-4 bell peppers that have been seeded and sliced into strips. I like to use all the colors of peppers for a lively looking dish. Just keep tossing and stirring the mix until the peppers are short of the doneness you like. I like a crisp texture in my peppers so it only takes a few minutes, but you may like your peppers to be well done and soft--its your kitchen and your food so have at it!
Add the gravy--about 2 cups--and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of ground ginger. Mix well and heat through. Serve over hot cooked white rice with Chinese-style noodles and extra soy sauce, if you want. Voila!

If you don't have gravy: in a separate saucepan melt 3 tablespoons butter, add 3 tablespoons flour and cook the roux until it is bubbly. Add 2 cups canned beef broth or stock, or make stock from beef base and water or beef bouillon and water, whisking constantly until it is thickened. Proceed with the recipe as indicated.
This recipe is so easy it is scary. You have any recipes that are scary easy? Please feel free to share!
'Til next time Mangia!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Here we are again, weeks since I have posted anything. I should have named this blog "No Time" because I seem to have no time to do anything anymore. Apparently the older you get the more you have to keep up with, the fast time elapses, giving you less and less time to accomplish more things. If that makes any sense. Scary that it does to me.

In the vein of "no time" I was thinking about more shortcuts I could possibly post here to help all of you with dealing with this "no time" phenomenon. I came up with nothing, nada, zip, zero, nil, none. Oh, this is not good... My mind is a complete blank. However, someone very near and dear to me recently sent me an email telling me they looked on this blog to find a pie crust recipe. Oops, not here. I usually buy the premade ones from the dairy section at the grocery store--you know the ones that are rolled up in a tube and all you have to do is let them come to room temperature, unroll them into your pie plate, fill, cover, flute, and bake. That is very easy, but it is not homemade, which, as all of you know, I prefer.

I responded apologetically that I do not "do" pie crusts, and you know what happened? My friend found a simple one pan recipe with no kneading and rolling and sent it back to me! This blog is truly becoming a two-way street! Be still, my heart.

So, in the spirit of shortcuts, sharing, and no-fuss-no-muss, I am trying out Himanee's shortcut pie crust find. I will post photos in a day or two, but for now, here are the instructions:

For a 9-inch crust:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons
sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup veg oil

2 tablespoons milk.

Mix the dry ingredients together in the pan, then add the liquid and
work it into a dough. Using your hands is not a problem since there is
enough flour to absorb the oil without making a mess. No rolling necessary. Just pat it out with your hands. Bake it at 400 degrees
for an hour and it's good to go (Gupta-Carlson).

I plan on making my world-famous apple pie using this crust recipe, but I guess I will have to find a dutch crumb topping since this recipe is only for a bottom crust, but we will see what happens. This would work great for pumpkin pie that only uses a bottom crust, and alleviate having an un-matched pie crust from the package.

Source:

Gupta-Carlson, Himanee. Excerpted from a personal email on file with author. 2012.